The invention relates generally to program filtering and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus of filtering programming such as television programming that is objectionable to the user.
In some prior art designs of filtering objectionable television programming, offensive language is detected, the audio is muted, and the closed captioned broadcast signal is modified. The process may consist of monitoring the closed captioned signal. Each captioned word is checked against a dictionary of offensive words stored. If an offensive word is detected, the audio is muted for the sentence, and the offensive word is removed from the closed captioned signal. A suitable word is substituted for the profanity, when appropriate, and the replacement sentence is displayed on the screen in text form.
As can be seen, there is a need for a method and apparatus of using tagging in television programs for scene filtering and alerts.